Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 26.djvu/131

Rh illustration of American official spread-eagleism. The incumbents of the several departments of the survey wished to publish their works in octavo, so that the results might appear in convenient form, and become hand-books for students of science. The plan was overruled by Governor Seward and his advisers, "who considered it due to the dignity and importance of the State of New York that the volumes should be published in quarto form, especially as they were to be presented to other States and foreign governments as emblematic of the greatness of the State." The survey was reorganized between 1842 and 1844. A department of agriculture was added, and the paleontological department—Mr. Conrad having resigned without making a report—was assigned to Professor Hall, who began his work in 1844, "almost without a collection of fossils of any kind, without a library for reference, without artists, or any of the appliances or resources considered necessary in scientific investigation. It became necessary to create the department from the beginning." No appropriations of money were made by the State for the collection of fossils till 1856, when provision was made for eight years, and the whole burden of labor and expense was till then thrown upon Professor Hall. He was assisted in these arduous labors by his wife, who drew the figures of a large number of the fossils.

Five volumes of the "Paleontology" have been published, two of which were divided into two parts, making seven bound volumes. As analyzed by Dr. T. Sterry Hunt, the first volume, of 338 pages and one hundred plates, contains descriptions of all the organic remains, both of animals and plants, beginning with the lowest member of the New York system and ascending to the Champlain division, which terminates in the Hudson River group, corresponding to the Cambrian of Sedgwick, or the Cambrian and Lower Silurian of Murchison. The second volume, of 363 pages and more than a hundred plates, continues the system up to the base of the Onondaga or Salina formation. The third volume, of 533 pages, with 128 plates, includes all the fossil remains of the water-limes, the Lower Helderberg, and Oriskany divisions, except the corals and bryozoa. The fourth volume includes the brachiopoda of the Upper Helderberg, Hamilton, Portage, and Chemung divisions, which together constitute the Erian or Devonian. The fifth volume contains the lamellibranchiates of the divisions just named, together with a review of all the lamellibranchiate forms of the lower formations. Two other volumes are to include the gasteropodæ, cephalopodæ, crustaceæ, crinoideæ, bryozoæ, and corals of the Erian. Professor Hall has prepared, also, for the "Paleontology," a complete revision of the brachiopods of North America, with about fifty plates, in aid of which he has extended his researches to the Rocky Mountains, tracing the great divisions of the New York series over the intervening region; and the identifications made by him have served as the basis of all our knowledge of the geology of the Mississippi Basin.